Tuesday, January 10, 2006

A survey of Vietnamese residents shows that people who handled or cared for sick chickens were more likely to report some sort of flulike illness in 2004. Although the study cannot prove these people were infected with bird flu, it suggests that infections may be going undetected, said Dr. Anna Thorson of the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm, who led the study.

The study took place in a region in Vietnam known to have bird flu in its poultry and consisted of just asking people if they had flu-like symptoms and what their exposure to birds was like. It didn't test people for exposure to the avian flu virus. We have no way of knowing, based on this study, whether or not the avian flu is responsible for those "flu-like symptoms." And "flu-like symptoms" are very common, even in the absence of flu, let alone avian flu.

It would be interesting, but costly, to test people in these regions for antibodies to the virus to see if it is indeed more widespread. If it were, it would mean that it isn't as deadly as we think, that we're just hearing about the severe cases that end up in the hospital. However, the way it has behaved within families suggests that it is, in fact, a rather lethal virus. The multiple deaths within families isn't encouraging.